


Boy Detective and Your Very Good Son

by miinyuu



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Nail Painting, accidentally calling someone 'mom', angus being precious, family fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 06:06:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11457552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miinyuu/pseuds/miinyuu
Summary: Angus paints his nails, accidentally calls Lucretia 'mom,' and finds he really does have a family who loves him after all.Features art by @espriix on twitter/tumblr!





	Boy Detective and Your Very Good Son

It’s been a while now since Angus joined the Bureau of Balance. He’s begun to feel more at home on the base, surrounded by so many people who care for him like they haven’t seen another child in years and were just  _ waiting _ for one to dote on. He gets his fair share of bullying as well, from a certain group of three in particular (and a certain dwarf even more so), but he can tell they don’t really mean any harm. At least, Magnus and Taako don’t. The jury is still out on Merle, perhaps. 

Angus spends a lot of his time helping The Director with her daily tasks. He tries to keep busy and be as useful as he can be to her and to everyone else; he strives to be an important asset to the team. In following Lucretia, he learns bits and pieces of what’s happening on the base, though a great deal of things are still a huge mystery to him, Boy Detective or not. Everything is kept tight under wraps, but he knows one day he’ll solve this mystery too. 

The most intriguing part of it all to him is that once every few days Lucretia will suddenly have to dismiss the boy, telling him that she has very personal matters to deal with. She locks herself inside her office and won’t come out for hours. In these times Angus feels himself at a small loss for what to do, left to wander the base in search of something else to keep him busy. 

Occasionally he will retreat to his room and read, or he’ll brush up on his clues to any recent mysteries. The last he’d solved surrounded a case of Killian’s missing leftovers that only seemed to repeat itself day after day. After the third day he had discovered the culprit was none other than Merle Highchurch, whose short legs could only help him run from Killian so far before she caught up to him. 

What happened after that was none of Angus’ business. 

On other days, when he’s feeling more sociable, he’ll meet up with one of his friends. He would sit and talk to Magnus as he practiced his woodworking; watch Killian, Carey, and No. 3113 as they practice fighting maneuvers (not without an offer of ‘we can teach you sometime if you like!’ from Carey); he would work on his magic spells with Taako. 

On this particular day he chooses to look for Taako. After some light detective work (which mainly consisted of ‘have you seen Taako around, sir?’) he finds the wizard in his room, and upon opening the door he finds him settled on the floor, painting his toenails. The seven nails he’s done so far are all different colours, all bright and showy even despite the fact that Taako almost exclusively wears boots these days. 

“Whatcha up to kiddo?” Taako asks, briefly glancing up before continuing to paint the one nail a bright neon green. 

“I was... hoping you could help me work on my magic some more, sir. But I don’t want to interrupt—” 

“Oh no sweat!” Taako grins at him as he screws the cap back on the bottle of polish. “Wanna join me first?” 

“No offense, sir, but I really don’t want to help you paint your toenails.” Angus crosses his arms over his chest.  

“Ango, come here, sit down,” Taako invites. Angus does as he is asked, if a bit hesitantly. 

“You ever painted your nails before, pumpkin?” 

“Oh, no, I haven’t,” Angus says, watching as Taako rummages through his collection of bottles and fishes out a shimmery gold one this time. 

“Why not?” 

“I… I’m not sure?” Angus says, though it ends up as a bit of a question to himself. 

“So what colour are you thinking, then?” Taako asks, nudging the zipper bag toward the boy. It holds no less than forty bottles, all in assorted colours, some with glitter or confetti or any sort of odd designs swirled around inside, some even with stickers that announced they would glow in the dark. 

Angus pauses for a second, then looks through and lifts out a bottle of pastel pink polish. He looks up to Taako as if checking for approval. Taako looks to his side and lifts a different bottle off the floor to hand to him, saying, “Put this one first. It’s a base coat, keeps it on a lot longer. Stops it from chipping so fast. You’ll thank me later.” 

Angus nods and sets to work. 

By the time the base coat is dry and he’s painted the first two nails, the door to Taako’s room swings open without so much as a single knock. 

“Hey Taako, have you seen—” Magnus starts, then stopping when he sees Angus sitting on the floor before him alongside his elf friend. 

“Aww, heya Ango!” Magnus grins, crouching down to get closer to his eye level, see what he’s doing. “Taako teaching you to do your nails?” 

“Yes, sir!” Angus smiles proudly and holds up his one half-painted hand for Magnus to inspect. 

“Lookin’ good!” Magnus says, then moving to sit properly on the floor with them, crossing his legs. “What color should I do mine, then?” 

Before Angus can even answer, Taako quickly casts Prestidigitation on his own nails, making them all an identical pink to Angus’, giving up on his myriad of colors for the time being. “Duh, you gotta match us,” Taako butts in in a singsong. 

Angus grins and looks to Magnus, instructing him, “This one is the base coat! You can put that on while I finish up with the pink, sir!” 

It’s a good hour later before all three boys have finished their pink nails, waiting for the topcoat to dry when Angus receives a message on his stone of far speech. 

“Angus, are you there?” 

He rushes to grab the stone from his pocket, quickly replying, “Yes ma’am! Did you need me?” 

“If you’re not too busy already,” Lucretia says, “I could use your help with a few things, yes.” 

Before Angus can reply that he’s on his way, Taako leans over, grabs the stone for himself. 

“Can’t we have the kid for one day? Just one? Isn’t that fair?” he whines. 

“Taako,” Lucretia sighs. 

Before she can utter another word in protest, Magnus cuts in this time. “He’ll be right there!” 

Taako shoots him a glare and Magnus just laughs, earning him a slap to the arm. Angus tries to hold back a small laugh before he gets to his feet. 

“Thank you for spending time with me today.” He smiles. “And for teaching me to properly paint my nails!” 

“Wait, wait, hold up,” Taako says, “let me see ‘em first! I didn’t even get to see ‘em properly yet.” 

Angus holds out his hands, nails shining bright with the soft pink, and Taako gives an amazed expression. “ _ Very _ precise work there, darlin’!” 

Magnus holds his own hands behind his back as he says, glumly, “Even better than mine…” 

The three of them all laugh and Angus takes his leave, reporting back to Lucretia with his stone as he’s on his way back to her office. Angus is about twenty minutes into helping her organize some journals before Lucretia notices his hands and asks, “Are your nails pink?” 

Angus can’t quite read her tone or her expression just yet, but he holds up his hands for her to see with a soft, “Yeah!” 

Lucretia smiles wide and gives a small laugh, asking, “Let me guess — did Taako help you with those?” 

“No ma’am,” Angus grins, his expression fully showing his great pride in his own work. “He might’ve showed me how at first, but I did them all by myself!” 

Lucretia can’t help but clasp her hands together over her chest, smiling equal parts from her pride in the young boy and from her being simply amazed at how precious he is. She takes a small step closer and takes his hands in her own, leaning in to inspect them more closely. After a second she looks back up at him, straightening her back once more as she smiles, “They look very nice, Angus.” 

Angus drops his hands back to his sides and says, “Thanks, mom!” 

Lucretia raises her eyebrows at this remark, then tries to hold back a laugh at his mistake. It’s a bit funny, but more than anything, it’s endearing — she can feel her heart swell even more at this now, mistake or not. 

It’s only in seeing her reaction that Angus notices what he’s done. 

“A-ah,” he stammers, “I mean— ma’am! I— I meant to say ‘ma’am’…” The little boy is visibly flustered now, blushing like mad and looking like he’s a second away from pulling his hat down over his face to hide. “I’m sorry…!” 

“It’s alright,” Lucretia says, a smile still stuck to her lips. “We’ve practically become family anyway now, haven’t we? All of us?” She suppresses a laugh as she crouches down, puts a hand on Angus’ chin and places a soft kiss to his forehead, the brim of his hat bumping into her nose. She can barely pull away before Angus closes their distance again, throws his arms around her in a great big hug. 

Lucretia wraps her arms around the small boy too in return, noticing that after a few seconds he still hasn’t loosened his grip. She continues to hold him but soon notices his back shaking a little just before she hears a sniffle in her ear. So Lucretia has to pull back, get a look at Angus as he lifts a hand to wipe at one of his cheeks under the frame of his glasses. 

“I’m– I’m sorry, ma’am,” he says, voice shaking. “I didn’t mean to– to start...” 

“Angus, It’s alright,” she echoes from just a moment ago. Lucretia’s thumbs wipe the tears pooling at the bottom brim of his glasses, giving him another gentle, loving smile. “We love you.” She can barely get the last word out before he’s wrapped her up in another hug, his nose still sniffly though the tears seem to have stopped. She holds him for a moment longer before she sneaks a hand to Angus’ side and begins tickling him, the little boy squirming and laughing harder than he has in quite some time. 

Caught in this fit of giggles, he is happy, and he is home. 


End file.
